Are Crystal Palace the oldest professional soccer club in the world? I'm joined this week again by Dr Kevin Moore to discuss whether Palace's recent claim has any substance (spoiler alert: no) and, more importantly, to ask what exactly is football history and how we should do it. Fun fact: using the same methodology that Crystal Palace historians use to ‘prove’ they are the oldest professional soccer club, I demonstrate that they are also the world’s oldest rugby league club.
You can follow Kevin Moore on Twitter at @doctorkevinmoo1 and you can visit his website here.
The Guardian’s article on Crystal Palace’s rewriting of history is here and the club’s YouTube video is here. You can buy Peter Manning’s book on the history of the club, Palace at the Palace, from the Crystal Palace Foundation’s website.
For a criticism of Palace’s claims, Clive Nicholson and Mark Metcalf’s extensive critique of Palace’s claims is on their Fred Spiksley website.
I discussed the problems of looking for ‘firsts’ in football - or in history generally - in episode 64 of Rugby Reloaded which was entitled ‘Football Firsts: the last thing we need?’.
Phil Vasili’s book on Arthur Wharton from 1998 that Kevin talks about can be found here. The illustration below is of the England versus Scotland international at the Oval which Kevin mentions as being mistaken for soccer when it is in fact rugby.
England versus Scotland at the Oval, London in 1872. Soccer or rugby? The clue is in the posts under the gasometer on the right of the illustration.